When a patient lays stationary for one or more hours, the patient often develops pressure ulcers on several points of the patient's body (typically bony portions, such has the heels) that contact the surface on which the patient lies. Extended stationary laying occurs in a variety of situations, such as when transporting patients strapped to stretchers or spinal boards from remote areas to metropolitan hospitals, treating patients in medical facilities (for example, catheterization laboratories, operating rooms, intensive care units, observation rooms, inpatient rooms, or others), or caring for bed-ridden patients in their own homes, senior living facilities, or other locations. In fact, more than 2.5 million people in the United States develop pressure ulcers each year, and an estimated 11 billion dollars is spent annually on pressure-ulcer care. Pressure ulcer formation is a leading cause of increased length of hospital stay among surgical patients, further increasing patient suffering and expenses and further consuming limited hospital resources. The problems related to pressure ulcers are so prevalent that, in 2008, Medicare ceased funding and payments to medical facilities related to pressure ulcers that initiated while the patient was hospitalized.
The typical approach to addressing the pressure ulcer problems associated with extended stationary laying is to adhere pads to pressure points on the patient's body, such as the heels. The pads reduce the effects of stationary laying by exposing the pressure points to indirect pressure from the surface on which the patient lies, as opposed to direct pressure from the surface on which the patient lies. The pads typically include gel pads, inflated pads, foam pads, or others. However, the pads typically only delay the onset of pressure ulcers, often by as little as one hour.
Pressure ulcers often present as open wounds that extend through the skin and expose the bone. As a result, once pressure ulcers mature to this stage (often within 3 hours, even when pads are preemptively applied), the patient experiences excruciating pain. This excruciating pain is often experienced following cardiac ablations, for example, where patients must remain stationary for up to 5 or 6 hours during the procedure, 1 to 2 hours during immediately subsequent recovery, and an additional 4 to 6 hours in an observation or inpatient room. To alleviate the pain in the patient's heels, it has been considered to place pillows or rolled towels under their calves or ankles, yet the medical professionals typically strictly prevent such action because it involves movement of the patient that could endanger the patient's recovery and because it changes the angle of the patient's legs, thereby changing the angle of the groin and preventing access to urinary catheters and also preventing “sand bagging” (placement of heavy pressure sand bags on the patient's groin while the femoral veins or arteries clot). Such action is also typically avoided before or during surgery to prevent reducing access to the femoral veins or arteries.
The placement of uncontrolled towels or pillows also interferes with the medical professional's ability to quickly place the patient's body into the desired position for surgery. Placement of towels or pillows under the calves further interferes with sequential compression devices that are often wrapped around the patient's calves to prevent deep vein thrombosis. Commercially available products that may be used instead of towels or pillows typically likewise inhibit the ability of medical professionals to act quickly and confidently during emergencies or medical procedures because they (a) are often unstable to the point where they must be held by hand while the patient's extremity is placed on the product, (b) typically require moving the products subsequent to moving the patient's extremities subsequent to placement of the patient on laying surface to place the products under the patient's extremities, or (c) typically require moving the patient's extremities in conjunction with the products subsequent to placing the products under the patient's extremities to provide a desired groin angle or access to the femoral veins or arteries.